✤ summary: after the thunderous clash of the trial of seven, the ashford sunset bleeds with more than just light. as the crown of the heir falls into the dust, prince valarr targaryen finds himself anchored to the world by the only presence of his sweet dreamer. in the hollow silence of his tent and under the smoke of the funeral pyre, they forge a pact in the dark — a promise that trascends duty, death, and the terrifying weight of a blood-stained legacy.
✤ pairing: valarr targaryen x cousin!reader (maekar's daughter/daeron's twin sister)
✤ contents/tags: reader is a dreamer (prophetic visions), twin connection (daeron's pov/feelings), heavy angst, grief & mourning, comfort/aftercare, emotional vulnerability, secret relationship, akotsk era, the trial of seven (it was hard writing about it), canon divergence
✤ word count: 2k+
masterlist | part 1 | other works | part 3
note: hi — this is the end. this is a bit longer than the first part, i hope you'll like it. no smut here, just reader and valarr's mutual understanding and pure relationship. im glad you liked the concept and the story. i feel like there's no need to add a third part, but im thinking about writing some prequel oneshots to explore more how they ended up like this and also to describe better the twin connection with daeron. so, enjoy it and stay tuned. dear valarr, you are so loved.
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The roar of the Ashford crowd was no longer a celebration; it was a rhythmic primal thrum that vibrated through the soles of your boots. You stood on the viewing platform, a shadow amongst the royalty, your fingers white-knuckled as they curled around the cold silver chain hidden beneath your bodice. To the lords and ladies around you, this was a spectacle of justice, but to you, it was a cacophony of impending doom.
Being Daeron's twin meant you weren't just watching the field; you were feeling it. Every time your father or your brothers shifted their weights in their saddles, a jolt of secondhand terror lace through your chest. You could feel Daeron's wine-soaked nerves fraying, his desire to be anywhere but here — in a clash where Targaryen blood was destined to spill Targaryen blood.
Your gaze, however, kept drifting to Valarr.
He stood as the Young Prince should — stiff, regal, and composed — but you knew the man beneath the armor. You knew the weight he carried, the man who had whispered in the dark that he was terrified of not being enough. He wasn't fighting, yet he looked as though he were the one being crushed by the iron mountains charging across the grass.
Then, the world slowed.
The sharp hum in your skull — the one that had vibrated since you arrived at Ashford — suddenly reached a fever pitch. A flash of silver wing breaking under a mountain of iron. You saw it before it happened: not as a knight falling, but as a dragon's blood spilled across the sky, staining the sunset.
When the blow landed, when the helmet of your uncle Baelor finally gave way, the silence that followed was louder than the screams.
You looked at Valarr. In that horrific heartbeat, the princely mask didn't just crumble — it vanished. His mismatched eyes, usually so full of a soft, burning light when they looked at you, were now wide with an agonizing, hollow shock. The shadow-twin in you wanted to scream, to run to him, to be the shield he had promised to be for you.
But here, under the judging eyes of the gods and the realm, you could only watch as the man you loved became an orphan and an heir to a heavy, blood-stained crown all at once.
The aftermath was a blur of mud and mourning. As Baelor's body was carried from the field, the air felt thin, as if the very breath of House Targaryen had been stolen. You found yourself walking toward the royal encampment, your steps heavy, avoiding your father's thunderous, guilt-ridden gaze.
The bond with Daeron was screaming. Your twin was somewhere nearby, drowning his prophetic nightmares in the sourest wine he could find, and you could feel his visceral terror — the ghost-fires of his visions had finally burned someone you loved. But your soul wasn't reaching for your twin; it was reaching for the prince who now walked with the weight of a kingdom on his shoulders.
You saw Valarr from a distance, surrounded by kingsguard and weeping lords. He looked like a statue of dragon-glass — sharp, dark, and ready to shatter. For a fleeting second, his eyes found yours across the sea of mourning cloaks. There was no sweetness in them now, only a profound, aching void. He didn't speak, but the way his hand momentarily brushed the spot where his silver chain usually rested told you everything.
Wait for me, his silence pleaded. Be my shield when the world turns to iron.
The interior of Valarr's tent was a tomb of silk and silence. The single candle from the night before had burned down to a jagged stump of wax, its flame flickering weakly against the encroaching gloom. When you stepped inside, the air felt heavy with the scent of old incense and the metallic tang of armor that had seen too much of the sun.
Valarr was there, stripped of his cloak and his crown, sitting on the edge of the camp bed with his head buried in his hands. He didn't look up when you entered, but you felt the shift in the air — the way his grief reached out for yours, a silent, jagged cry.
"I can still hear the sound", he whispered, his voice so hoarse it barely carried. "The sound of the helmet giving way. The sound of the world breaking".
You crossed the space between you in silence, your own heart echoing his rhythm. You didn't offer empty words; there were no words in the Common Tongue for the death of a sun like Baelor. Instead, you knelt before him, your hands finding his. His skin was burning, the heat of the dragon radiating from him in waves of feverish sorrow.
"Valarr, look at me...", you commanded softly.
When he finally raised his head, the sight nearly broke you. His mismatched eyes were bloodshot, the serene light you had seen the night before extinguished by a suffocating darkness.
"Daeron saw this", Valarr said, a bitter laugh catching in his throat. "He saw the dragon alone in the storm. I thought...I thought I was the one who would fall. I was ready to be the sacrifice, to keep the crown safe. But the gods are cruel, sweet dreamer. They took the shield and left the shadow to lead".
He reached out, his fingers trembling as they traced the line of your jaw. "I am the heir now. Every eye that looked at my father with love look at me with expectation. And I am terrified that when they look, they will see nothing but a hollow mask".
You took his hand and pressed it to your chest, right over the silver chain he had given you. "They see a crown, Valarr. But I see the man. I see the one who stayed with me when the visions became too loud. You were my anchor, let me be yours now".
The conversation shifted into the liquid tones of High Valyrian, a language of fire and blood that felt safer than the words of men. You spoke of the future Daeron feared and the strength you knew Valarr possessed. You helped him unlace the heavy leather of his doublet, each movement a slow, reverent act of care. As the layers fell away, exposing the vulnerability of his bare chest, the prophetic humming in your mind began to fade, replaced by the steady grounding thrum of his heartbeat.
He pulled you up onto the furs with him, holding you with a desperate crushing force. It wasn't the heat of passion this time, but the heat of survival. He buried his face in the crook of your neck, his breath shaky against your skin.
"Don't leave me in the dark", he pleaded. "Promise me, my sweet dreamer. No matter how heavy the crown becomes, don't let me be just a king. Remind me that I bleed. Remind me that I am yours".
The morning brought no comfort, only a harsh, unforgiving light that stripped away the illusions of the Ashford fields. You stood among your family, next to your little brother Egg, a shadow lost amidst a sea of mourners, as the smoke from Baelor Breakspear's funeral pyre rose straight toward an indifferent sky. The air was thick with the scent of dry wood, ceremonial incense, and the cloying, sweet perfume of death — a mixture that scorched your throat with every breath.
A short distance away, Valarr stood motionless before the flames. He was draped in the black and red of your house, looking every bit the Young Prince, yet to your eyes, he seemed like a man forged of ash, struggling not to be scattered by the wind. Beside you, the bond with Daeron was a dull thrum of guilt and nausea, but your senses were anchored to Valarr.
For a fleeting second, the heat of the pyre triggered a spark of your vision. The flames were not merely fire; they were dragons dancing, and in their roar, you seemed to hear the weeping of an enitre dynasty. You felt the bite of the silver chain against your skin, a cold reminder of the night before amidst the suffocating heat.
Valarr turned his head slightly. In that ocean of grieving faces and calculating gazes, his eyes found yours. It was only a heartbeat, a secret shared through the shifting veil of smoke. There were no crowns in that moment, no titles or successions. There was only the silent promise of two souls who had already begun to walk through the darkness together.
As the flames consumed what remained of the silver dragon that had been his father, Valarr squared his shoulders, the regal mask sliding back into place. The vulnerable man you had held in the tent was being swallowed by duty, but in the way his jaw set, you knew the promises made in the dark were stronger that any funeral pyre.
That night, too, you found yourselves alone within the silken walls of his tent, seeking a sanctuary that the world outside could no longer provide. The candle finally sputtered and died, leaving the tent in a thick, velvet darkness that felt more like a shroud than a sanctuary. Outside, the sound of Ashford were changing; the frantic cries of the afternoon had settled into the low, rhythmic hammering of carpenters building coffins and the distant, mournful baying of hounds. The world was moving on from the tragedy, but inside this circle of silk, time had frozen.
Valarr's grip on you didn't loosen. Even in his exhaustion, his fingers remained intertwined with yours, his thumb tracing the patterns of your knuckles with a restless, feverish energy.
"Tomorrow, we leave this place", he whispered into the dark, his voice regained some of its princely steel, though it remained frayed at the edges. "My father's ashes will be taken to King's Landing. And I...I must ride at the head of the procession. I must be the shield for a mourning realm, even as I feel my own spirit shattering".
You shifted in his arms, pressing your forehead against his. The silver chain he had pressed into your palm earlier now a cold, reassuring weight against your skin. "You will not ride alone, Valarr. Even if I am leagues away, even if the visions try to pull me into the ghost-fires, I am bound to you".
"A shadow-twin", he murmured, recalling the words Daeron had spoken in his wine-soaked visions. "The only one who can guide me through the dark".
He pulled back just enough to look at you, the faint moonlight filtering through the tent's flap catching the unshed tears in his eyes. "They will try to marry me off soon. To consolidate the line. To ensure the succession now that the Great Hall feels so empty". He swallowed hard, the muscles of his throat jumping. "But they don't know. They don't know that my soul was already sealed years ago, in the dark sand and hot fires of Dragonstone, to a dreamer who sees the man behind the crown".
You reached up, silencing him with a kiss that tasted of salt and desperation. It wasn't the worshipful, slow exploration of the night before; it was a pact. A silent oath that no matter what coucils or kings decreed, the blood of the dragon in you recognized only him.
"Let them talk of crown and legacies", you whispered, your voice a low hum that seemed to vibrate in the vey air. "We will meet the storm together. Always".
As the first grey lights of dawn began to bleed through the fabric of the tent, Valarr sat up, reaching for the heavy signet ring that now belonged to him — the symbol of his new, crushing authority. He looked at it for a long moment, then looked back at you, the Young Prince mask slowly sliding back into place. But for one last second, he leaned down and gently kissed your lips, a gesture of such profound aching sweetness that it stayed the prophetic humming in your mind for one more hour.
"Stay with me, my sweet dreamer", he whispered one last time, a plea for the future as much as for the moment.
You watched him stand and face the light, his silhouette tall and imposing against the dawn. The Ashford Tourney was over, and the dreams had turned to ash, but as you felt the silver chain in your hand, you knew the real story — your story — was only just beginning in the shadow of the throne.
contains: college AU, basketball player!Taehyung, emotionally repressed!Taehyung, protective!Taehyung, possessive!Taehyung, dom!Taehyung (later), innocent!OC, friends-to-lovers, first love, mutual pining, slow burn, yearning, hurt/comfort, childhood trauma, grief, parental abuse (past), domestic violence (past), divorce, infidelity, family dysfunction, emotional dependency, psychological tension, miscommunication, reunion, explicit sexual content (Cock warming, messy kisses, fingering, oral (m&f) and more later), praise, jealousy, obsessive devotion, morally complicated decisions, heavy angst, strong language, emotionally intimate scenes, healing, happy ending, healing, and emotionally messy characters trying to love each other despite everything.
"Broken things remember the hands that tried to repair them."
Summary:
The first time Yeonhee met Kim Taehyung, he was alone in an empty basketball court, throwing every ounce of anger he couldn't take out on the world into a basketball hoop.
She'd only come there to hide, never expecting someone to already be there.
Neither of them meant to become each other's favorite part of an otherwise ordinary life, making it just a little easier to survive.
What begins with shared silence, convenience-store dinners, and homemade cookies slowly becomes the safest place either of them has ever known... until one buried secret forces Taehyung to destroy the only good thing he's ever had.
Years later, fate brings Yeonhee back to his doorstep.
This time, the truth refuses to stay buried.
I. KṢAṆA (🇨🇴🇲🇮🇳🇬 🇸🇴🇴🇳)
Ksaņa Ksha-na The small moment that quietly becomes a memory
Chapter 1 — The Empty Court (15k–20k)
An empty basketball court after sunset wasn't supposed to change either of their lives. Yet somewhere between echoing dribbles, convenience-store dinners, and a box of homemade cookies, two strangers begin sharing a silence that slowly starts to feel like home.
Chapter 2 — Cookies (18k–22k)
By the time Taehyung realizes Yeonhee has quietly become the safest part of his life, she's already woven herself into every ordinary day.
II. KAIROS (🇨🇴🇲🇮🇳🇬 🇸🇴🇴🇳)
kai· ros ['kīräs] noun, Greek the perfect, delicate, crucial moment the fleeting rightness of time and place that creates the opportune atmosphere for action, words, or movement.
Chapter 3 — The Photograph (18k–20k)
One decision that changes everything. Sometimes the cruelest thing love can do… is choose goodbye.
III. YEOUBI (🇨🇴🇲🇮🇳🇬 🇸🇴🇴🇳)
Yeoubi (n. Korean) the sun shining through the rain
Chapter 4 — Rain (15k)
An apology becomes a confession. A confession becomes a kiss. For one fragile moment, it almost feels like they've found their way back to each other.
♱ summary: the era of confessions entrusted to ink has reached its end. after moons of waiting, the return to king's landing transforms written words into a suffocating reality. between a banquet that feel like a masterpiece of torture and stolen glances under the weight of royal protocol, the final encounter is no longer a distant promise, but an imminent collision in the shadows of the red keep.
♱ pairing: baelor targaryen x niece!reader
♱ contents/tags: emotional tension, repressed longing, infidelity, power dynamics, targ!dynamics (uncle/niece), age gap, arranged marriage, canon divergence
♱ word count: 1k+
Distance is no longer measured by the length of the road, but by the frantic rhythm of a heart finally finding its way home.
the archives | part nine | other works
note: hii♡ i didnt forget about our man. here it is the 10th part, enjoy it. i'll post the eleventh in few hours (sorry, im busy). a little bit of tension is never enough!
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The air of King's Landing hit you like a physical weight — thick with the brine of the Blackwater, the charcoal of a thousand hearths, and the ancient, metallic scent of sun-baked stone. It was a brutal contrast to the floral lethargy of Highgarden and, as your carriage rattled over the uneven cobbles of the Aegon's Hill, you felt a predatory clarity settle in your bones. This was a city of predators, and you were finally returning to the nest.
Your husband sat opposite you, adjusting the heavy gold chain at his throat, his face flushed with the pride of a man who believed he had been summoned to help steer the realm. He spoke of alliances and trade routes, his voice lost in the cacophony of the capital's streets, while you remained a statue of emerald and silk. Your gaze was fixed on the Red Keep looming above, its pale red stones glowing like embers in the fading light. You weren't a guest; you were a storm front, and the royal authority that had kept you at bay for so long was now the very thing drawing you in the heart of the flame.
As the carriage passed through the iron-toothed gates, the rhythmic thrumming in your blood reached a fever pitch. The distance was no longer measured in leagues, but in mere feet of masonry and shadow. You stepped onto the courtyard stones, the familiar grit of the capital under your boots, and looked up at the towering windows of the Hand's Tower, knowing that behind one of them, the ghost you have lived with for moons was about to become flesh.
The Great Hall was a cavern of whispering silk and flickering torchlight. As you walked toward the Iron Throne, the court was a blur of bowing figures and curious eyes, but your world had shrunk to a single point at the far end of the hall. There, seated on the chair of the Hand beneath the empty throne, was Baelor.
The impact was visceral. He was more haggard than the letters had betrayed, the shadows beneath his eyes deeper, his posture that of a man holding a crumbling world together by sheer will. When your husband dropped into a deep, theatrical bow, you performed a curtesy so perfect it was an insult to the chaos beneath your skin.
For one heart beat, your eyes met his. It wasn't the polished recognition of a kinsman; it was a collision. You saw the flicker of raw hunger in his mismatched irises before he masked it behind the heavy lids of a statesman. He didn't smile. He didn't offer a warm welcome. He simply inclined his head, his knuckles white where they gripped the arm of his chair. The silence between you in that crowded room was louder than any shout — a lethal acknowledgement that the letters were over and the reckoning had begun.
The welcom banquet was a masterpiece of refined torture. You were seated at the high table, close enough to catch the sharp scent of cedar from his doublet, yet separated by the immense weight of protocol and the physical presence of your husband between you. Baeor played his part with a frigid excellence, discussing the grain stores of the Reach with the same measured, royal tone that had once driven you to despair.
You watched his hands — the hands you had described with such visceral honesty in the dark of Highgarden — and how he was playing with the heavy rings around his fingers. You saw the way he avoided looking directly at you, his jaw tight as he sipped his wine, the mask of the Prince nearly cracking every time your husband laughed. You didn't eat; the flavors of the capital were ash in your mouth. You simply watched him, your gaze a steady, predatory flame that demanded he acknowledged the truth of the hunger he had confessed. The tension was a living thing, a wire stretched so thin it hummered with the threat of snapping.
Back in your assigned chambers, the silence was deafening. Your husband, exhausted by the journey and the wine, had succumbed to sleep almost instantly, his presence a void that you ignored as you stood before the hearth. You were staring into the dying embers when a soft, almost impercetible scratch sounded at the door.
A maid you didn't recognized entered, her head bowed. Without a word, she pressed a small, heavy object into your palm — an old, blackened key — and a scrap of parchment no longer than a finger. As she vanished back into the shadows, you unfolded the note. The writing was a jagged, desperate scrawl, stripped of all artifice.
The library. The spiral stair behind the Valyrian histories. Now.
The distance was dead. You didn't hesitate. You didn't even grab a cloak. You simply turned toward the door, the fire itself finally finding its way home through the dark.
♱ summary: the gilded cage of highgarden has become a tomb of rotting sweetness. as the performance of duty withers into surgical detachment, a lethal ultimatum is sent to the capital. when the royal summons finally arrives, it is not merely a political decree, but the sound of the sky tearing open to bridge the distance between two souls.
♱ pairing: baelor targaryen x niece!reader
♱ contents/tags: arranged marriage, emotional detachment, age gap, targ!dynamics, manipulation of power, infidelity themes, mentions of psychological decay, secret correspondence, epistolary
♱ word count: 1k+
It is no longer a secret of the mind, but a physical journey toward an inevitable collision.
the archives | part eight | other works
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The air in Highgarden had turned to brittle. The once-celebrated perfume of the terrace now felt like a shroud of rotting sweetness, an olfactory reminder of a life that was decomposing while it still stood. You sat through a mid-day banquet in the solar, the sunlight catching the gold thread of your sleeves, yet you felt as though you were carved from the very limestone of the castle walls — cold, immovable, and utterly alien to the festivities around you.
Your husband was in high spirits, regaling the table with new of a bountiful harvest and the expanding influence of the Reach. He leaned in to whisper a jest, his breath warm against your ear, and for a split second, the mask of serenity almost shattered. You didn't feel annoyance; you felt a profound, surgical detachment. He was a ghost to you, a minor character in a play that had long since lost its audience. Your responses were clipped, your smiles so precise they were predatory. The court began to notice — not a rebellion, but a withdrawal so absolute it bordered on the divine. You were no longer haunting these walls; you were an occupier waiting for the order to raze them.
The urgency was no longer a dull ache; it was a rhythmic thrumming in your blood. Every hour spent in this gilded cage felt like a theft of your very essence. You watched the messengers arrive and depart, your eyes tracking the road to the capital with a hunger that made the drudge of the everyday an insult you could no longer tolerate. The time for being a creature of paper was over; the ink has to turn to steel.
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That night, you did not wait for the candles to burn low. You wrote witha a hand that was steady and lethal, each stroke of the quill an act of war against the distance.
My Baelor,
I am done with being a memory. I am done with the safety of these walls and the polite fictions we weave across the leagues. My life here has become a performance in an empty hall, and I find I have lost the will to speak my lines. I do not want your ghost in my bed anymore; I want the man who admitted his integrity is a hollow shell.
Do not tell me of patience. Do not tell me of the labyrinth of maps as if I am the child to be comforted. If you are truly the Hand, then move the pieces. Create the crack in this prison. If you want me as much as you claimed, then summon House Tyrell to the capital. Find the pretext — a council, a wedding, a trial — it matters not. But know this: I am a fire that is running out of air, and if you do not bring me to your side, I will burn this entire garden to the ground just to see the smoke reach the Red Keep.
The Crown is yours to wield. Use it.
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The summons did not arrive as a private confession. It came with the thunder of hooves and the blare of a royal clarion, delievered by a rider bearing the heavy, crimson, three-headed dragon seal. Your husband broke the wax with a mixture of pride and curiosity, his chest swelling as he read the official decree aloud to the gathered court.
"By order of the Heir to the Iron Throne and Hand of the King, Prince Baelor of House Targaryen. To ensure the stability of the Southern grain trade and the continued loyalty of the Reach, a Great Council is hereby covened at the Red Keep. The presence of the Lord and Lady of Highgarden is deemed essential to the security of the Realm".
The reaction within the walls of the castle was one of frantic, joyful preparation. Your husband, ever the stranger in your bed, was invigorated by the summons, seeing it as a testament to his own growing importance in Baelor's eyes. He walked through the halls barking orders to stablemasters and seamstresses, entirely unaware that he was merely a pawn being moved across a board he didn't understand.
You watched the chaos from the center of your solar, a chilled triumph settling in your marrow. As your maids began to pack the heavy silks and velvet traveling cloaks, you caught your reflection in the polished bronze mirror. The woman looking back was no longer the Lady of the South who was withered in the jasmine-scented heat. Your eyes held a lethal clairty, the spark of Old Valyria now burning with a steady, predatory light.
You reached out and brushed your fingers against the lid of a cedar travel chest, the wood cool and real under your touch. The cloying sweetness of the Reach was already a memory. You knew you weren't traveling to a council; you were marching toward an inevitable collision. The betrayal was no longer a secret of the mind — it was a physical journey that would end in the shadow of the Iron Throne.
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Later that evening, hidden with the folds of a formal diplomatic brief meant for your huband's eyes, you found the slip of parchment intended only for yours.
The handwriting was no longer erratic; it was the script of a man who had finally surrendered to his own gravity.
You challenged me to use the Crown, and I have place it upon the altar of my own hunger. The pretext is set; the machinery of the Seven Kingdoms has been bent to the simple, desperate need to breathe the same air as you. There is no more talk of required words or the safety of the labyrinth of maps. I have torn a hole in the sky to bring you home. The road is open, and the distance is a dying thing.
Come to me.
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note: and now it begins. thank you for sticking with the story so far, you gentle reader. ♡
♱ summary: as the distance between highgarden and the capital stretches, the silence of a dutiful life becomes unbearable. letters are no longer enough to bridge the gap, and the mask of a perfect lady begins to crack under the weight of a feverish, shared obsession.
The truth of a flame is found not in its light, but in the peace it finds within the destruction.
the archives | part seven | other works
note: hi, it's aureh again. to you who chose to read this: thank you so much! thank you for sticking with the story this far. i promise you that things will change in the next parts — i cant tell you yet how, when, or why, but stay tuned! *wink wink* enjoy the read, and truly, thank you again! ♡♡
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The afternoon in Highgarden was a masterclass in stillness. A thin, relentless drizzle had washed the vibrant colors of the Reach into a smear of muted watercolors, turning the limestone walls of the castle into a cold, damp skin. You sat in the Great Hall, moving through the motions of a lady's duty with a precision that bordered on the uncanny. You listened to the endless petitions of local farmers and the droning gossip of the ladies, offering nods and measured smiles that were as polished as a mirror and just as hollow.
Your husband sat beside you, his hand occasionally resting atop yours in a gesture of public affection. To him, you had finally blossomed into the perfect consort — docile, attentive, and serene. He could not sense the glacial detachment that radiated from you, nor did he realize that every time his fingers brushed your knuckles, you were mentally charting the distance to the capital. You were no longer fighting the suffocating sweetness of your surroundings; you were using it as a shield, a beautiful, golden lie that bought you the silence you needed to feed your obsession.
Behind the mask of the Lady of Highgarden, your mind was a cathedral of forbidden architecture. While your lips spoken of grain stores and winter preparations, your thoughts were miles away, wandering the corridors of a palaca made of shadow and memory. The drudge of the everyday had become a background noise, a rhythmic hum that you ignored in favor of the feverish heat pulsing in your veins — a heat that no amount of Southron rain could ever hope to dampen.
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When the candles were finally extinguished and the world shrank to the dimensions of your bedchamber, the charade ended. With your husband's rhythmic, oblivious breathing as your only companion, you drew the inkwell close. The letter you wrote was no longer a plea; it was a visceral map of your hunger.
My Baelor,
I have become a ghost in my own skin, a spectator to the life I am forced to lead. In the sunlight, I am the image of grace they expect, but when the moon rises, I am yours in ways that would make the gods tremble. My mind has become a sanctuary where I recreate you with terrifying clarity. I imagine the weight of your body against mine, the way your hands — the hands that hold the fate of the Seven Kingdoms — would find the secrets of my flesh with an unyielding, scholar's precision.
I have reached a point where reality is the intruder. When his hands seek me in the dark, I do not feel them; I replace the clumsy warmth of a stranger with the phantom scent of your skin. I am molding your ghost in the linens, breathing life into a shadow until I can almost hear your heartbeat beneath my ear. Is your crown so heavy that you have forgotten how to bleed? Or do you, too, find yourself waking in the middle of the night, clutching at a vacuum where I should be?
I am done with patience. I am creature of fire, not paper, and I am starving.
Your Little Dragon
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The reply did not come on the usual heavy vellum of the Small Council. It was a thin strip of parchment, smelling faintly of extinguished candles and the sharp stang of iron. There were no flourishness, no elegant calligraphy — only the raw, jagged imprint of a man whose composure had finally been eroded by the relentless tide of your words.
My Devouring Flame,
Your letter did not just reach me; it dismantled me. You speak of creating my ghost in the dark, know that you are not alone in this. I have sat through meetings of state where the voices of lords were nothing but a dull roar, my mind occupied only by the memory of the curve of your shoulders and the defiant heat of your gaze.
You ask if I have forgotten how to bleed. Every night is a hemmorahage of the soul. I have spent hours staring at the maps of the Seven Kingdoms, not to govern them, but to trace the path to you with a desperation that makes my duties feel like a slow execution. My integrity is a hollow shell, a brittle mask held together by nothing more than the terrifying realization that if I were to touch you now, I would let the world burn just to keep the warmth of your skin against mine.
I am no longer the Hand, nor the Prince, nor the scholar. I am a man starving in a palace of plenty, reaching for a shadow that has beome more real to me than the stone beneath my feet. If this is madness, then I have long since surrendered to it.
Your Baelor
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When you finished reading, you didn't weep or tremble. Instead, a surge of cold, absolute power flooded your veins. You had reached across the leagues and unmade him; you had stripped the most powerful man in the realm to his very marrow. The royal authority he had used to distance himself was gone, replaced by a hunger that mirrored your own with a lethal, terrifyng symmetry.
In the absolute darkness of the chamber, you closed your eyes and let the phantom scent of cedar fill your senses. You weren't a wife enduring a duty; you were a sovereign of your own desire, presiding over a kingdom of two. The walls of Highgarden, the vibrant golds and greens of the banners, and the cloying sweetness of the air were all lies. The only truth was the gnawing ache in your chest and the knowledge that Baelor's spirit was currently fleeing toward you, just as yours had already departed for him.
You lay in your bed, a smile as sharp as a blade touching your lips, watching the shadows dance of the ceiling. The bridge had been burned. There was no going back to being a Lady, or a niece, or a dutiful ward. You were the flame itself, and you were finally, terrifyingly, at peace with the destruction you were about to bring.
